Rampage 3, Monsters 1: Lake Erie fizzles on offensive end

A power outage in Quicken Loans Arena on Friday and Saturday had nothing to do with building lights.
One night after losing 4-1 to the San Antonio Rampage, the Monsters were blanked for the first two periods Saturday and lost to the Rampage again, 3-1, before a crowd of 9,775 on Special Olympics Night at The Q.
The game Saturday started and ended exactly the way the first 50 minutes went for Lake Erie on Friday, when the Monsters had only 10 shots on goal for the first 2 1/2 periods.
The Monsters had only one shot on goal in the first 12 minutes Saturday. Their second shot on net, with 7:45 left in the period, was a clear during a penalty kill from deep in the Lake Erie zone. It counted as a shot on net, but only on the stat sheet.
The third period was more of the same. The Monsters were outshot, 13-4, and could not clear the puck from their own zone in the final two minutes, when they desperately wanted to pull goalie Calvin Pickard for a sixth attacker with the score 2-1.
Instead, Rampage wing Logan Shaw scored his first career goal with 55 seconds left for the 3-1 final.
“In the third, we gave ourselves a chance,” Monsters coach Dean Chynoweth said. “We have a plan under four minutes left of what we’re doing and then we have an icing call and get hemmed in our end and it’s in the back of the net. We didn’t have the guys we wanted on the ice because we iced the puck. They (Rampage) made two full changes.”
The Monsters did have some jump in their skates in the second period, but Jacob Markstrom turned aside all 12 shots Lake Erie threw at him.
The Monsters kept up the pressure in the third period and cut a 2-0 deficit in half on Michael Sgarbossa’s second goal of the season. Garrett Meurs made the goal at 5:10 of the final period easy by skating down the slot with the puck and passing it to Sgarbossa near the left post at the last possible instant.
The Rampage did not pressure Monsters goalie Calvin Pickard for 60 minutes, but the visitors made the most of the chances they did have.
San Antonio took a 1-0 lead 3:24 into the first period on a play that began with a pass by right wing Bobby Butler from the bottom of the left faceoff circle across in front of the Monsters net to Drew Shore low in the right circle. Pickard was slow to slide across the goal mouth, nor did he get much help from his defense. Shore’s one-timer over Pickard’s left pad was the only goal of the first period.
Just as the Monsters had trouble getting shots on net in the first period, San Antonio had only five shots on goal in the second. But the Rampage also had the only goal. Jared Gomes scored it with only 2:06 left in the period. He got half a step on Matt Hunwick in a race from the blue line and scored on Pickard’s stick side before crashing into the net.
The AHL is now on its All-Star break. For the Monsters (20-22-0-4), who are 14th in the 15-team Western Conference, it is a time to regroup.
“We’ve been brutally inconsistent,” Chynoweth said. “You have a pay a price. The AHL is a great league. It’s harder to play down here sometimes than it is in the NHL. Anybody that’s gone up will tell you that.
“The learning curve for some guys is greater than others. Players have to be accountable. It can’t always be the coach screaming and ranting and raving every time.
“If you’re going to be a pro, you have to learn to get yourself up and learn how to play to have success. We just haven’t done it consistently enough.”
The Monsters do not have any players on the All-Star team. Their next game is Friday at Oklahoma City.